Access to recycling facilities has never been better; nine out of ten households have a kerbside collection scheme.  However, even though 64 per cent of us are 'committed recyclers',  national targets for recycling will require even more people to recycle and everyone to recycle more of their waste.

To understand how we can get the vast majority of people (who are already recycling) to fully participate in local schemes, we needed to discover what currently prevents them from doing so.  To help with this, Recycle Now commissioned research to explore people's barriers to recycling at home. 

The results provide new insights into the different forms of encouragement, information and advice required to increase recycling rates with different sections of the population.  It also gives us the opportunity to build on this information and make the best use of our budgets by saying the right things to the right people to improve and sustain their recycling habits. 

The 'barriers to recycling at home' summary report and a full technical report can be downloaded from www.wrap.org.uk/barrierstorecycling

England's 20,871 primary and secondary schools produce around 250,000 tonnes of waste each year -enough to fill Wembley Stadium.

Recycling or composting this waste would give local authorities an environmentally-friendly alternative to landfill and could save them around 6.4 million pounds in Landfill Tax. It could also potentially save an estimated 176,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions.

The research was commissioned to help improve understanding about the types and quantities of waste from schools and to give local authorities and other recycling service providers indicative data to aid their service planning.

WRAP offers training and advice for local authorities, as well as resources for schools, to help improve the recycling of waste from schools. Click here to find out more. 

The full report can be found at www.wrap.org.uk/schoolwaste.